DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Agentic
Coding
Multimodal & Grounded
Reasoning
Knowledge
Instruction Following
Multilingual
Mathematics

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)· Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) finishes one point ahead overall, 68 to 67. That is enough to call, but not enough to treat as a blowout. This matchup comes down to a few meaningful edges rather than one model dominating the board.

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)'s sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 69.4 against 50.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 71% to 40.5%. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B does hit back in coding, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 128K for DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking).

Operational tradeoffs

PriceFree*Free*
SpeedN/AN/A
TTFTN/AN/A
Context128K262K

Decision framing

BenchLM keeps the benchmark table and the operator tradeoffs on the same page so a better score does not hide a materially slower, pricier, or smaller-context model.

Runtime metrics show N/A when BenchLM does not have a sourced snapshot for that exact model. The scoring rules and freshness policy are documented on the methodology page.

BenchmarkDeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
AgenticDeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) wins
Terminal-Bench 2.071%40.5%
BrowseComp70%61%
OSWorld-Verified67%54.5%
tau2-bench81.2%
CodingQwen3.5-35B-A3B wins
HumanEval79%
SWE-bench Verified48%69.2%
LiveCodeBench45%74.6%
SWE-bench Pro58%
Multimodal & GroundedQwen3.5-35B-A3B wins
MMMU-Pro66%75.1%
OfficeQA Pro77%
ReasoningDeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) wins
MuSR81%
BBH86%
LongBench v278%59%
MRCRv278%
ARC-AGI-24%
KnowledgeQwen3.5-35B-A3B wins
MMLU87%
GPQA85%84.2%
SuperGPQA83%63.4%
MMLU-Pro73%85.3%
HLE22%
FrontierScience77%
SimpleQA83%
Instruction FollowingQwen3.5-35B-A3B wins
IFEval85%91.9%
MultilingualQwen3.5-35B-A3B wins
MGSM84%
MMLU-ProX79%81%
Mathematics
AIME 202387%
AIME 202489%
AIME 202588%
HMMT Feb 202383%
HMMT Feb 202485%
HMMT Feb 202584%
BRUMO 202586%
MATH-50084%
Frequently Asked Questions (8)

Which is better, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) is ahead overall, 68 to 67. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 71% and 40.5%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.3 versus 65.9. Inside this category, SuperGPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72.6 versus 50.7. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 60.1 versus 59. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.4 versus 50.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 75.1 versus 71. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91.9 versus 85. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 81 versus 80.8. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 31, 2026

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